This is my wife lol, every time we’re in the car we’re playing them on repeat.

That’s totally fair that you don’t think it fits, but I don’t think the other user was out of line for suggesting it might.

The way you say “potentially diseased” is pretty rude. That’s not how I view folks with ASD. All of this is because someone who has ASD and thought OP was going through something similar. I have ADHD. If I saw someone speaking about one of the pivotal moments that led to me getting a diagnosis I might say to them “have you considered you have ADHD?”

I asked what the contract is, not what the reaction should be, or are you saying you’d say the contract is the reaction?

They do still surprise me, sometimes, but they finally understand that there’s a cost, to me, to it. And now they weigh that into their decision, and it is so nice for me!

This part is important. I touched in it a little in my comment to OP as well, but it’s easy to forget that a relationship is not only about how you show love, but how you accept it. I’m glad you’re able to accept some surprises and I’m glad your partner has accepted that not everything should be a surprise. It’s a good compromise!

Just running a web search for “ASD gift disappointment” gives a ton of articles, not necessarily the exact situation OP is in, but it’s enough to say that I think it’s a common thing.

Respectfully, what contract do you think this gift represented? What do you think you’d be getting out of by not accepting it?

(Quick aside, I don’t know all the details, so I use a lot of imprecise language to account for uncertainty.)

A very common reason that people like old things is that they are trying to be self sacrificial or frugal to save money. I’m not saying that’s why you are, but it’s important to realize. Your wife could very easily see you always doing this as you trying to be nice and save money for the family/pair of you rather than getting yourself something nice. I’m sort of like that. I have a weird aversion to spending money so don’t always get myself nice things.

Gifts can be given for a lot of different reasons. It’s sort of difficult to quantify why because it’s something emotional. Giving someone a gift card for something can feel better than giving money because it is more specific to their interests, and giving a specific gift is even moreso.

I think your spouse perhaps sees you every day surrounding yourself with things that they view as old and broken and maybe thinks you’re doing it because you don’t want to spend the money or treat yourself to something nice. So for a gift, they may have thought “for once, my spouse deserves something nice, I want them to have something nice and new.”

Then, when you say “I don’t like this, I like my old one” it hurts their feelings perhaps because they think you’re saying it’s a bad gift. They may have put a lot of thought into this expensive gift, maybe even thinking long and hard about what aspects about it you may use more. I think you said it’s a kitchen appliance in another comment? So I’ll assume it’s something like that, just to help explain. Say it’s something like a kitchen top mixer. Maybe they thought about the foods you make and the attachments and may have even thought about specific times you struggled with the older one (that despite working fine, maybe doesn’t have features some new ones have). If all of that is true, when you say it’s not a good gift, you could be saying all that thought and effort was incorrect.

Something frustrating about this is that there isn’t really a right answer. There’s not necessarily an objectively correct answer to whether they should’ve gotten you the gift and whether you were wrong to ask to return it and set a boundary about newer items as gifts. You two are in a relationship. Relationships are about compromise. You brought up the nerdy shirt thing as an example. It could be comparable, but it’s hard to say. If the shirt selection process is something like “my spouse likes superman and there is a superman shirt at the store, I’ll buy it” and their gift selection process is something like “my spouse uses this item nearly every day, this is how they use it, these are the things they struggle with, these are the features they would benefit from having, I’ll get them this one” then no, they aren’t comparable. (But, I don’t know everything, the thought process could’ve just been “let me go to an online store and pick the one with the best reviews” and nothing more.) I don’t wanna make assumptions and apply them, that’s part of why a lot of this is sort of vague and “if if if”, but it could very well be that they didn’t want the shirts in part because they know they won’t wear them and also because they may have thought you weren’t putting a lot of thought into them.

Every relationship is unique. We have to not only think about how we show love, but also how we’re willing to accept being loved. Gift giving is a love language. This gift may have been a very intimate and genuine expression of love from your spouse. Asking them to return it would hurt their feelings very badly. And it sounds like it did if they had to leave the house.

How did you feel when you agreed to not buy them nerdy shirts? Was it just sort of like “okay, I can do that” or was it devastating? Thinking about compromising and how we both show love and accept love, it might not be comparable. If nerdy shirts bother them but you not being able to give them doesn’t upset you, then that’s a win, right? No downside. But if you not wanting something new upsets you and it also really upsets your spouse not being able to give them, then it’s complicated. And whether or not you should accept the gift isn’t really the point I’m making in this moment, I’m just trying to help explain why this situation may not be as comparable to the shirt scenario, despite seeming like it is.

My gut feeling to all of this is that you should just accept gifts. That was how I was raised. Maybe it’s just considered a polite thing because of the culture of where I live (southeast US). But that moment is past. You can’t go back to how you reacted when you opened it so it’s no use talking about. What has happened is that your spouse’s feelings are hurt and you hurt them. It doesn’t matter who is in the right at this moment, what matters is that you hurt them. You need to apologize for hurting their feelings. Try to understand their feelings and apologize for the things you did that hurt them. Don’t provide explanations or defend yourself, because apologies aren’t about who is right and wrong, they’re about who is hurt.

In general, I think asking someone if you can return their gift is pretty rude. I always try to include a gift receipt in case people want to, but getting told to my face “I returned your gift because I didn’t like it” would be upsetting.

I definitely think discussing some new boundaries after this are in order. Not necessarily because either of you did anything wrong (because I also want to give you the benefit of the doubt that this gift may have upset you too), but because this situation led to a scenario where both of you got really upset. Maybe a cash limit on gifts? Maybe gifts over that limit you discuss together? “Honey, you always use that old mixer, and you deserve a new one, I want to get you one.” “No, but thank you, I like this because X and Y.” Or, if the surprise aspect is important to your spouse and they really don’t want to ruin it, maybe you can agree on no gifts over a certain price that are replacements for things you already have? And that if she gets it wrong, you still accept the gift maybe? Maybe you both agree to talk about gifts over that price limit prior to purchase?

Relationships and love can be difficult things. But communication is key. Apologizing is key. Apologize for hurting their feelings without defending your actions or explaining yourself. Once they feel better, talk about what the new boundaries might look like.

Sort of relevant, the post made it sound like it might be a 3d printer. You can have two prints going on at once with two 3d printers.

I misread that, oops

Wait wait wait, these are the same clowns behind the KSP 2 fiasco? Wowwwww…

Edit: I misread

My understanding is they refunded everyone who bought it.

Still dumb for them to do this, don’t mistake me.

Dishwasher. It saves a fuck ton of time. I’ve heard it saves water, but I haven’t seen studies. I have a hard time believing it could use more if it’s full. Regardless, it’s faster. I hate chores. Make machines do them.

As long as the amount of energy it takes for them to fly upwards some amount is less than the amount of energy it would take for them to physically move upwards then you’ve got free energy. I only used superman as an example because he’s probably the most iconic example of effortless flight. Compare it to characters like bird man that flap wings to fly.

Even if somehow there is not a single example of a character that doesn’t use energy to fly and every author made up some strange way to collect energy, you’ve still made a hyper efficient power plant using a previously unusable energy source. Like if they get power from something like “magic” in the air that recharges over time, then that’s still a brand new energy source.

Or just fucking teleporting lol

It was something that radical feminists used to say a few years back.

Edit: To be clear, I’m not saying I agree with this sentiment nor am I saying it’s something I think is reflective of progressives, but it’s a controversial thing to say that will make a lot of people angry. It was just an example of something that makes a lot of people angry.

Debian’s website is such a pain. Why are the live ISOs buried?

Yeah, like those Power A Switch controllers that were officially licensed by Nintendo but weren’t Nintendo brand controllers.

Super powers are already an infinite glitch. Theyre supernatural so are inherently glitches. Things like flight, like super man flight, generally don’t take effort from the user so already break thermodynamics in small ways. But if you’re breaking a law of nature at all you’re already going infinite.

Imagine you have a bunch of people with this style of flight. Imagine a sort of ski lift device but unpowered. Have them fly to the top and ride it down. Because no weight is going up, only down, the ski lift doesn’t need to be powered. Additionally, because it doesn’t take power (food) for people to fly up, then you get free energy extracted at the bottom.

Congratulations, you have created a perpetual energy device with a single super power.

I’m zeroing in on a better method. I think “I no longer want this job and have accepted another. I am ineligible to work in this country. I am a felon.” seems like a pretty good.

If I’m genuinely speed running this and don’t have consequences is probably drop slurs followed by multiple, conflicting extreme political opinions involving violence and the like. The goal is that even if you find a racist who is excited about your slurs you can hit 'em with extreme progressive takes like “kill all men” or something.

Worst case, after saying a bunch of bad things and conflicting opinions they’ll probably still just think you’re odd.

A better but boring answer, just say “nevermind, I don’t want this job” first thing. lol.